McMillan: Cornwall's Cuffe has leg up on competition at national championships

December 11, 2009

Cornwall's Aisling Cuffe is one of those pleasant athletes who appreciates the attention she receives, but remains very humble about her accomplishments. With her tiny voice and slightly shy demeanor, Cuffe will gladly talk about her running prowess, dropping in the occasional "Aw, shucks" giggle as punctuation.

Of course, she has good reason to be smiling. Cuffe is the number one-ranked cross country runner in the nation, and on Saturday she makes her bid for a slice of immortality. The final race of her stellar junior season is the Foot Locker Nationals in San Diego, and Cuffe is considered to be one of the four favorites to win. Last year she placed 12th in the race.

With her pixie appearance, Cuffe looks like a young girl who should be playing with dolls, but she has a competitive spirit that runs strong and deep. "I don't like losing,'' Cuffe says with conviction.

Up to now, Cuffe has enjoyed an almost perfect season — she has yet to lose, but her goals are usually based on the stop watch. She handily won the state championship on a wet, miserable November day in Plattsburgh and yet, she was still peeved that she was one-tenth of a second away from cracking 17 minutes.

Records are made to be broken, and Cuffe is on the cusp of several prominent course marks, ranking second all-time at Lehigh University, Bear Mountain and Bowdoin Park.

Cuffe has made an absolute mockery of the championship season.

Fayetteville-Manlius has been billed as one of the great cross country teams of all time, and Cuffe smoked FM's best by 23 seconds at the Eastern States.

She took on the entire Orange County league and won by 60 seconds.

Cuffe was the big fish in the small pond at the sectional meet, winning by 2 minutes, 7 seconds.

Even though she kicks herself for not breaking 17 at states, she cut 22 seconds off her SUNY Plattsburgh course mark and won by 43 seconds.